


If There Was a Right Way (Honey, There Is No Right Way)

by noonegoodquality



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Class Swap, Alternate Universe - what if, Character Study, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:27:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22477882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noonegoodquality/pseuds/noonegoodquality
Summary: Let's say Caleb was a bit more scared of magic.Let's say Ioun noticed how much Beau loves learning.Let's say Fjord's silver tongue is a little more magical.Au where the mighty nein are all different classes, but it doesn't change much, only their beginnings.
Relationships: The Mighty Nein - Relationship
Comments: 19
Kudos: 150





	If There Was a Right Way (Honey, There Is No Right Way)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Hozier's Someone New

**Mollymauk**

Molly wakes up in his own grave. He’s empty, without even a name in his possession. He gains that a little later, some time before Yasha joins them but after the carnival finds him.

***

To say he discovers his powers by accident is an understatement.

It happens during a scuffle with some drunk locals in the town they’ve stopped in for supplies– too small to set up a show, so they’re just offering a couple of side show attractions in the hope of making a little money.

A punch lands harder than anyone expected it to. It knocks him back a few feet, but Molly bounces right back. Coming back up with blood trickling from his split lip, and his eyes a red so bright they could be glowing.

Instinct or muscle memory or _something_ kicks in, and suddenly he’s going after the assholes twice as viciously as before. His anger doesn’t fade even as they turn tail and run, the only thing that stops his mindless pursuit is Yasha grabbing his arm in an iron grip, and holding on until he comes back to himself.

They have to skip the town after that. Gustav tells him not to worry about it, so long as he doesn’t get them chased out of anywhere they’re performing, and the others make him do all the worst chores for a week.

(No one says anything, but Molly can tell they’re all wary of him afterwards. He’s never had much of a temper, and the way he’d snapped had been so utterly unlike how he behaves – how he _is_. He doesn’t try to explain it. Couldn’t if he tried. He’s got no idea what happened, can’t put into words the unbearable anger that had flown through him in the moment.)

***

Sometimes, in nightmares that don’t belong to him, Molly dreams of power. Of praying with arms soaked in blood that isn’t his, of carving bloody eyes into his body in devotion to his master, of offering mocking blessings to screaming creatures in the name of a treacherous lord.

When he wakes, it’s with a name he doesn’t know on the tip of his tongue, and bile rising in his throat.

***

He almost kills someone the next time he gets into a fight. Afterwards, Yasha pulls him away from the camp, walking through the forest with him until they find a clearing. He doesn’t want to fight her, afraid of losing control. She tells him not to be stupid. They spar until he’s exhausted.

It becomes a regular activity, testing out the limits of his strength and his recklessness. Trying to figure out what it is that he can do. Yasha listens bemused as he creates tall tales to explain his abilities, a different story every time.

He isn’t going let the person whose life he’s taken ruin it for him.

Instead, he prays to the Moonweaver, and loathes the person who was. He intends to live his to the fullest. He takes the full moons’ light shining down on him as promise that he isn’t that person. He plans out new cards to add to his deck, going through ideas at a dizzying rate. (Later, he’ll ‘borrow’ one of Caleb’s daggers to take inspiration from when he redraws a few of his half-sketched cards.) He pulls young pick pockets aside to give them advice and a handful of coin. He pays too much for fresh fruit when he visits markets with Yasha and Toya. And after nightmares, he goes and sits with Yasha and they huddle together in silence and understanding.

**Jester**

Jester is very young when the Traveller first appears to her. She’s bored and curious, and happy to play for hours with the older, magical boy Mama calls her imaginary friend. So they grow up together, the Traveller always a little ahead of her. They draw and paint, play pranks, and tell jokes back and forth for hours.

Jester listens rapt to the stories the Traveller tells her. Stories of the god he is and the god he will be, when she is older and his champion, the unbridled chaos and mischief they will bring upon the world.

***

While Marion flawlessly incorporates her innate magic into her performances, Jester struggles to light a single candle. Her Mama kisses her forehead and tells her it will come with practice. But Jester feels, deep in her gut, that she will never properly master it the way her Mama has.

The Traveller watches her, over the weeks that follow, as she determinedly practices the cantrip with little success. At first, he seems amused, as he often is, but as the weeks turn to a month, he grows quieter.

***

They’ve stayed up late one night, as they frequently do. They’re lying in the dark, the perfect time for sharing secrets and fears.

“I had hoped, that one day I might teach you magic.” The Traveller says softly, as he lies staring up at the ceiling.

Jester worries at her lip and her tail twitches uncomfortably. She whispers “I don’t think I can.”

An almost tangible hand finds hers. “It’s okay, Jester. Not everyone can have the potential for strong magic.”

“Oh.” She says. She realises there are tears welling up in her eyes and blinks, trying to will the uncomfortable tightness in throat away. “I’m sorry I can’t serve you,” she says, and even to her own ears her voice sounds strangled. “It’s okay if you don’t want to play with me anymore.”

The Traveller sits up at that, pulling her with him. He holds her in a hug, clutching her tight. “Don’t say that.” He says “You’re mine. You’ll always be mine.”

“Promise?”

“Of course.”

“Okay.” She pauses considering, as she uses the end of her sleeve to wipe her face dry. “Maybe I can use thaumaturgy for some cool tricks.” She tells him.

“I don’t doubt it. You’re so wonderfully clever. My Jester.” He lets her go, so they can look at each other, face to hooded face as he says it. “I’m not worried though. I know that whatever you do, you will do it loving me.”

She laughs, only a little wetly. “For ever, and ever.” She says, and boops him on the nose.

***

After that, the stories the Traveller tell her change. So do the ones her Mama tells her, once her change in preference became obvious. What were daring tales of mortals thirsty for power and knowledge become stories of soldiers clawing their way to the top through sheer brute force and determination. Powerful mages who could change the world around them with a thought, turn into clever thieves who could go anywhere and find anything or anyone. Devoted priests spinning illusions and magic tricks to match their clever stories, shift to loyal wordsmiths, travelling the world and inspiring and dismaying all who cross their paths.

***

By the time she’s a teenager she’s worn Marion down enough that she’s allowed to get lessons from Bluud. Fighting’s harder than she thought it would be, but she enjoys it so, so much. The thrill of outwitting an opponent, of using her strength with purpose. Blud laughs and calls her bloodthirsty when she begs him to teach her more, always more.

She and the Traveller have so much fun. They stay up late, planning the great feats she will achieve, and the people she will tell his stories to. She draws him pictures of the cool things she will do in his name, much their shared delight.

Later she’ll have to leave, and begin her adventures in the world she grew up hidden from. Her Mama will give her money to look after herself. Bluud will give her a sturdy axe and make her promise to be smart about getting into trouble. The Traveller will give her his company and his laughter as she leaves. When she meets her first few friends, she will stay up late into the night drawing pictures of them and asking the Traveller what he thinks of them.

**Caleb**

Caleb Widogast gave up on magic long ago.

Or perhaps that is inaccurate. Caleb Widogast never believed in magic to begin with.

Bren did, once upon a time. But the fairy tale of prodigy and power he’d been living shattered, leaving him breaking his heart and his mind both.

So he doesn’t trust magic; all he’s ever seen it do (all he’s ever done with it) is cause pain.

He certainly doesn’t trust himself with magic. He knows where that road leads, and he can’t let it happen again. Even as selfish and corrupted as he is, the impossible idea of fixing what he has done pales in comparison to the knowledge of what damage he could do with that power. After all, he had had the power of a schoolboy when he burned his family alive, compared to what he would need to bend the fabric of the universe to his will. The potential of what he would do with more power is untenable.

It’s obvious to him, the way magic rotted away his core. It mixed with his weaknesses, and Ikithon’s teachings into a potent cocktail of delusional cruelty.

Without that possibility it is hard to keep going at all. He doesn’t really deserve that though, does he? Getting to rest. To retreat into a unknowing nothing where there is no guilt, or blame, or memory. He doesn’t deserve that rest, that peace. And he never will.

But, if he does nothing else good in his life, even with no hope of redemption, he still needs to stop the corruption at its source. He owes that much. (He owes so much more.) He needs to root it out and burn it down. Salt the earth so thoroughly that nothing is left. Pull it out of shadows and into the light where it cannot be wilfully ignored.

He needs to kill Trent Ikithon.

(It’s easy to forget, with the flashiness and raw power of the magic he was taught, that those weren’t his only lessons. He trained to be an assassin as well.)

There’s more to it than that of course. Ikithon is not nearly the only spot of rot in the Cerberus Assembly. Nor in the Empire as a whole. There is an entire spectrum of guilt that Caleb is not so foolish as to think himself exempt from. He will need to do much more than this, than eliminating one cruel old man, to truly remove the malice and corruption that lies under the surface of the Dwendalian Empire.

“But,” he will say one day, a wry smile on his face, talking to Nott and Beau, or all of the Might Nein, or Essek, Yussa, even two old school mates, or the Bright Queen herself. “It is good to start small. Ja?”

***

Nott’s a practical woman, Caleb has never dared ask her why she’s stuck with him so long. He knows the obvious of course, two is a harder target than one. But it’s the sticking with _him_ , even now that she has other options. The promises she made to leave with him if he only said the word. The viciously defending him from Beau, or Fjord, or Molly. (Not a smart choice. Better to ingratiate herself with the group than throw her lot in with him, rotten apple that he is.)

He doesn’t understand it. There’s little he can offer her, no money, or power, no safety, outside of the possibility of a knife in the back of her enemies, or his enemies’ knife in hers. But he is a selfish man. He takes and takes when he has nothing to offer in return, and remains too scared to ask why she gives, and trusts, and loves.

(He will not remain to scared forever. One day he will ask her, even though he will be paralysed with fear, he will ask. But that day is a very long way away.)

***

After a battle, Beau gives him a gentle shove, and calls him a coward for staying far back from the action. Not a single scratch on him. Even though Fjord took so much damage he almost died, now sitting on a rock as Nott heals him. Caleb smiles back at Beau, as though it’s nothing more than the joke she (probably, can’t be sure, she’s good at reading people) thinks it is.

***

It’s a desperate, last ditch effort. Caleb knows what happens to prisoners of war, and he will die before he lets these people be taken. He reaches in to Jester’s bag and pulls out the Beacon. Holds it above his head and speaks honeyed words that are mostly the truth. (There’s not much to lie about. He is no friend of the Empire.)

There is little he can do, barring violence, but this, he can do. Protect his friends, save Nott’s (-Veth’s) husband, shield them all from blame, using the Beacon, or using himself.

***

Caleb Widogast doesn’t believe in magic.

This is what he believes in instead: the solid weight of a knife in the gut, being irredeemable, convincing cats to let him pat them, reading a book too late into the night, old scars burning as though they think he could ever forget they are there, being only kind of an asshole when he plays tricks on his friends, protecting the people he doesn’t deserve but has anyway.

**Beauregard**

One day, Beau goes too far. (It’s not any further than she’s been going for months.) Evidence of her criminal activities is piling up, and it’s becoming clear just how much she’s betraying the family. She’s been having even more screaming rows with her parents than she usually does. Battering herself to pieces against a solemn cliff face which refuses to yell back at her, just stands they’re pretending they’re so much better than her, so rational and reasonable. It’s obvious she’s never going to carry the family business the way her father wants her to. Thoreau decides he’s had enough.

So naturally, he pays a monastery to kidnap her.

***

Mostly, it sucks. But, although she wouldn’t admit it on pain of anything, she does kind of love the books. And the library. And the research. At least when she gets to choose what she’s doing, instead of being given some boring task by an instructor.

She loves the other training too. Fighting with knuckles, and sticks, and whatever else they’ll let her use. The thrill of it burns through her veins and across her bloody smile.

But it’s the books that really capture her, have her sneaking out of bed in the middle of the night when there’s no one to see her, judge her, think she’s anything other than violent and a problem.

At first, she thinks that she’s gotten lucky, that someone keeps forgetting to lock the doors, letting her into the library without the use of her lockpicks. It takes her a week to realise that, as disciples of the Knowing Mistress, the archives of the cobalt soul are always open to its members. Sometimes some of the monks are still there, burning the midnight oil with the same fervour that has Beauregard getting only a few hours sleep after an exhausting days training because there is so much to know and she wants it all. When she notices them, she slips back to bed quietly, but she doesn’t sleep well anyway.

She picks languages up easily, absorbs histories and fairy tales, dense scientific tomes and treaties on advanced magic alike.

She is perhaps not as surprised as she should be when, in a spar, her fist crackles with burning, divine energy as it connects with her opponent’s solar plexus.

The other monks are surprised, insultingly so. (She shouldn’t be hurt by that; all they think of her is exactly what she’s been trying to make them think.)

The awe-inspiring magic she discovers means even more lessons and training. Some of it’s cool. Some of it is an absolute bore, has her sneaking out windows when her instructor isn’t looking.

She’s taught the stories of Ioun, and she pretends she doesn’t know them already, didn’t read through every book she could find that mentioned Ioun over two sleep deprived nights, when the Knowing Mistress caught her attention.

***

She runs away. She kind of regrets it, misses the seemingly endless knowledge she had at her fingertips, as well as a handful of the less stuck up people there.

But hey, they’d kidnapped her, because her dear old Dad gave them a handful of gold and told them to keep her out of his hair. So, she doesn’t feel too bad about cutting her losses and running, especially once she’s met a few people she thinks she can run with.

***

The first time she heals someone (for real, not in the monastery under instruction), it’s some asshole from the group of fuck-ups she’s fallen in with.

He says something dickish, masquerading as a thank you. She kicks his shin, right where a bruise has coloured it an even deeper purple than the rest of him, and tells him she should have left him for dead.

She doesn’t let on the bizarre cocktail of emotions she’s feeling. Pride and panic, confusion and accomplishment, petty vindictiveness and certainty that she shouldn’t be the one given this, uncertainty and calm. It all wells up inside her, making her dizzy with it.

***

And if she doesn’t pray much, isn’t really interested in spreading the good word, she’s not worried.

She’s more interested in asking inconvenient questions and raging against authority than she is in singing a god’s praises, and she’s pretty sure that’s the way Ioun likes it.

**Fjord**

Fjord has vague memories from when he was five or six, of another half orc at the orphanage. He was probably no older than 14 or so, even human kids were kicked out by the time they were around 16, but he’d seemed so grown up to Fjord.

Fjord has long forgotten his name. It might have been Rendar, or it might not have been. Either way, he had no interest in letting a runty kid hang off him. He’d been nearly fully-grown and strong enough that he hadn’t been an easy target the way Fjord was, though Fjord certainly doesn’t remember him having any friends to speak of.

Once or twice, when the taunts and violence were most pointedly aimed at Fjord’s heritage, and Rendar had been close enough, he’d told the other kids to fuck off or take it up with him if they had a problem with orcs. This had consistently resulted in the other kids scattering and Fjord trying to thank Rendar, for which he’d receive a not quite gentle shove and instructions to keep his head down.

More often though, the teenager had ignored Fjord completely, whether he was being bullied or not. And Fjord had been at the orphanage more than long enough to know that annoying an older kid wasn’t anything but a good way to get beaten up.

***

Fjord does have one clear memory of the older half orc.

It was summer, and Fjord was struggling to sleep, tossing and turning in the suffocating heat. Eventually his restlessness had driven him out of bed. A stupid idea, especially once he crept downstairs and lost the plausible excuse of the bathroom, but he couldn’t settle with the old building so stuffy from the trapped heat of the midday sun.

He’d only intended to slip out the backdoor for a moment, but once he was out in the cool night air, he heard something. It was low and rhythmic, quiet enough that he hadn’t noticed it from inside. He only realised it was music when a voice began singing, too soft and distant to distinguish. He should have gone back to bed, whoever it was wasn’t going to thank him for interrupting them. But it called to him, the way music often did, and Fjord will always be too curious for his own good.

It was Rendar, hiding in the storage shed, playing a drum and singing a soft, melodic chant. Fjord had stood by the door, left open a crack against the heat, absorbing the song. When Rendar saw Fjord hiding in the doorway, he stopped playing and sighed.

“Get lost.” He’d said. “You’re gonna get us both in trouble.”

Fjord shrunk back so that he was properly out of sight again, hoping that if he stayed still he’d be allowed to listen for just a little longer.

It didn’t work though. Rendar waited a few moments before swearing under his breath and telling Fjord to come in if he wouldn’t leave.

Fjord sat facing the older boy and his drum. Just out of arm’s reach, but too curious not to watch up close.

The other boy told him, as he started drumming again, that it was a day of remembering the dead for his tribe. He sang the same song over a few times. It seemed to be the most important one. After a couple of renditions, he pushed the drum towards him, helping Fjord pick up a simpler version of the rhythm, and follow Rendar’s singing with his own voice, hesitantly tripping over the syllables.

Fjord remembers thinking of a family he never knew, and a home he never had, as he played. The music and the stories he was never taught. In that moment, he had felt more connected, and more alone, than he’d ever felt before.

***

Years after, he washes up on a beach coughing up sea water. What little he had is lost. Lying next to him, he finds a barnacle encrusted flute.

As he learns how to play, he discovers power he didn’t know he had.

(He doesn’t make the connection with the time one of the youngest kids at the orphanage was sick and he’d sung her to sleep. The handful of times he’d been especially good at charming someone when he and Sabian had gotten into trouble. The times his insults were especially cutting.)

***

In his dreams, Uk’otoa tells him, in not so many words, that they have a deal, that Fjord gets power, and Uk’otoa gets loyalty.

Fjord listens. Because there’s a lot Fjord is willing to do, and a lot more he’s willing change about himself, if it means he gets to be something more than the nothing he’s always been.

He listens right up until Uk’otoa pushes too far. And then he finds himself standing over a pool of lava, clutching a bleeding wound and watching everything that made him special melt away into nothing.

***

He doesn’t want to try anything after that. To scared of feeling that bone deep certainty that he’s useless, the way he had when Uk’otoa was threatening to take back his power.

They’re on their way back from Uthodurn, the return trip less eventful than the trip there. There’s a sense of purpose in the air, now that Caduceus is so close to getting his sword remade. They’ve set up camp, and Fjord’s helping Caduceus prepare dinner. Fjord is humming under his breath as he starts a fire the non-magical way when he notices Caduceus staring at him with a small frown.

“What?” Fjord says.

Caduceus smiles, gesturing for Fjord to look behind him. “This is good,” he tells Fjord.

There are four floating lights, bobbing in the air behind him. He reaches out to touch one of them. It’s definitely his magic. Now that he’s stopped humming, he can see them fading. Despite the part of his brain telling him to panic, that he hadn’t succeeded in kicking Uk’otoa to the curb, Fjord examines them more carefully, starting to hum again, because he is, as always, curious.

They don’t feel the way his magic felt with Uk’otoa. Not like the unforgiving frozen depths of the ocean, water pushing down on him from all sides, the heady feeling of power. This is different. Shallow water lapping against rock pools and murky forests of seaweed. It reminds him of being a lot younger, listening to a song he’d never heard before with rapt attention.

He smiles, and begins to sing.

**Yasha**

Yasha has always loved the wilderness. The constancy, and unrelenting presence of the world around her is a balm to Yasha. The barren plains of her home. All the flowers she discovers, colour and shape so beautiful and fascinating. The moons, how bright they shine down when they’re full, the way Molly had gazed up at them with such a smile. The way ants move around colonies; the bustle in and out almost meditative. Storm clouds blanketing the sky, fat rain drops falling on her face. It makes her feel grounded, gives her something to drown out the rushing blood in her ears that calls her to chase, hunt, kill.

It’s different to the way she gives her heart to the people around her. The steady devotion she gave Zuala, then Molly, eventually the circus and the Mighty Nein, loving with her whole heart and being. The wilderness doesn’t need that from her. It doesn’t need anything from her, one way or another. It has always been there, and always will be, long after she’s dead and gone.

She retreats into the wild seeking comfort; when Zuala’s gone because Yasha was a fool and a coward, when Molly’s gone because she was weak and he’d been trying to save her, because he’d never had a problem with throwing good money after bad, when she dreams of violence she can’t remember and which hasn’t happened yet.

(Even if she destroys everything she loves, she can’t possibly fuck up enough to do the same to the wild.)

***

She doesn’t think on the wilderness much while she’s under Obann’s control, too focused on the things she can’t stop her body doing.

That’s a lie. She has so much time, trapped helpless in her skin. She has plenty of time to think.

(She thinks about her bedroom wall sometimes. The meadow Jester had put hours into creating, a gentle and kind riot of colours which promised her she was not alone. What a waste, for it to have been given to her, she now thinks. She wonders what they did with the room. If they’ve left it untouched in disgust. Painted over it, over her ever being one of them. Maybe Caduceus took the room, so he wouldn’t have to keep sleeping on the roof.)

The Mighty Nein, bright and impossible, and loyal down to the deepest fault lines, bring her back.

She learns that the Angel of Irons was a mask for Tharizdun.

Later, when the others aren’t around to be alarmed, she might laugh at that. (Not even the world itself is safe from the danger of her love.)

***

There’s a lot of skills she has that make sense to her. Yasha’s people had been hunters, in the most malicious sense, and she was good at what they did. Good enough for the name Orphan Maker.

Even before she met him again, when she couldn’t recall any of it, she knew, deep in her bones, how Obann took her in, with twisted love and thoughtless violence. How he taught her even more. How she’d been so very, very good at it.

When she chooses her target and fights to their death, she remembers what her people taught her, and it feels like condemnation. When the battlefield around her grows piercing thorns dangerous for friend and foe alike, she is reminded of the nightmares the Stormlord sends her, and it feels like an accusation. When she calls upon the wild to twist itself into something else, turning malevolent at her command, she thinks of the selfishness Obann wielded, and it feels like damnation.

When they run out of rations and she grows magical berries for them to eat, she remembers Zuala’s laughter as they ate together, and it feels like she’s a thief. When she speaks with the tree Caduceus planted on their roof, she thinks of Caduceus happily talking to the beetles that live in his staff, and it feels like corruption. When she heals Beau’s wounds, she remembers Molly’s pragmatic selflessness, and it feels like she’s a fraud.

So, she feels guilty about it all; the horrific bad, and the undeserving good.

But some days, more than she used to, when she’s gardening with Caduceus, or looking for flowers with Nott and Jester, or sparring with Beau, it’s easier to let herself love, and be loved in turn. By the wilderness that had always been her home, and the people who have firmly lodged themselves in her heart and soul, their deep roots clinging to a no longer barren cliff face.

And the longer she stays, the more long and difficult talks she has with Caduceus over pots of tea, with Caleb over sleepless nights and waking nightmares. The easier it gets for her to let herself grow flowers, and laugh when it’s stormy, and condense the reverent wonder inside of her into magic, and watch the sun set and the moons rise with a weathered smile.

**Nott the Brave**

Veth dies in the river by her hometown. Screaming, held down by so many hands. Water pushing unrelenting into her mouth, and ears, and nose. Panic rapidly expanding.

Nott wakes up angry.

She’s mad at the world, for the unfairness of it all. She hates herself, Veth’s insecurities blossoming into noxious weeds of self-hatred. She loathes the goblins, all of them, for everything they’ve done, and everything they’re making her do. She resents the god that she dreams of, the false hope she’s feeding herself, miserable night by miserable night.

Right up until that hope stop looking false, and starts looking like an escape.

She gets her freedom in the end.

She heads for Felderwin, desperate to see her husband and son safe. But she isn’t even halfway there before she comes across a villager on the road – someone she _recognises,_ knows by proximity, because everyone in town knows everyone. They attack, and she’s forced to run, veering off the road and getting herself hopelessly lost in the process. That night she admits to herself, curled up and alone in the forest, that she’s never going home again.

She cries herself to sleep, trapped in a place that is not her home, and a body that is not her own. She dreams, and in her dream is a feeling of comfort and contentment. It’s similar to some of her simplest happy memories. Working in the apothecary with Yeza, watching Luc narrate adventures for his toys, sorting through her collections, threading new necklaces. But it isn’t quite the same. Less real, or maybe more, considering that life isn’t something she can ever return to.

There’s a woman standing in front of her, the same one who’s been haunting her dreams since the transformation, maybe longer. She has dark skin and hair so long it tumbles down to meet the road behind her, melting into it. She kneels before Nott, and reaches forwards to cup her cheek. The gentle warmth of her hand sears against Nott’s frozen face.

 _“My bold and lonely wanderer,”_ she says. _“I’m sorry you are in such pain.”_ Nott stumbles away from her.

When she wakes in the morning, there are dried tear tracks on her cheeks and she is warm, though the night was cold.

***

Nott escapes yet another prison cell, with the help of a strange and dirty wizard. They travel together, for safety, and the closest thing either of them can get to comfort from companionship. Wary trust slowly turns into a rough sort of affection.

Nott can feel Avandra’s blessing upon them, whether she wants it or not. They avoid bandits where they should make easy targets, pull off scams that are past the wrong side of daring, find food thrown away when they haven’t eaten in too many days.

Caleb ruffles her hair and tells her she’s good luck. Nott smiles back at him like her heart isn’t trying to climb out of her throat. She wouldn’t know good luck if it stabbed her and spat in her eye.

***

Half a dozen friends later, Nott and Jester vandalise Bahamut’s temple in Zedash. They almost get arrested in the process. The half thought out plan they made went to hell before it even began, and now they’re hiding down a side street several blocks over trying to keep their laughter to an inconspicuous level.

They aren’t doing a very good job. It takes Nott awhile to notice the third voice. Another woman is laughing with them, a voice like the wind on a long road, almost as soon as Nott’s aware of it it’s gone. A final peal, especially loud, ringing in her ears.

“Did you hear that?” Nott demands.

“No. What is it? Guards?” Jester asks, looking around frantically before deciding they’re safe. “Is it the Traveller?” Jester gasps, “is it the Changebringer?” She asks in an exaggerated whisper.

“She’s laughing.” Nott’s mixed feelings are probably showing on her face, because Jester offers her a slightly sad smile, and a hug.

“I’m glad there’s a god who knows how cool you are.” She says seriously. Pausing for a moment before she’s taking quickly again. “I mean obviously, if you wanted to follow the Traveller you could. And I’m sure he’d give you super awesome powers that are even cooler. But I’m glad we get to do fun things together, and make them both happy.”

Nott leans into the hug, clutching Jester’s cloak. “Of course! We’re Nott the Best Detective Agency. Any god would be lucky to have us.”

***

As they often do, they get into a fight that’s just a touch above their pay grade. They’re winning anyway, but it’s by the skin of their teeth. Jester’s being healed by Fjord, which is good because she’s looking unsteady on her feet. Beau is standing between the two of them and the biggest monster, distracting it with her staff as she attempts to cast something. Caduceus and his army of ghosts are tearing through the rest, ruthless in a way that has given her a few nightmares in the past. Nott’s not sure where Caleb is, but given that their enemies keep dropping with his weapons buried in them she’s not especially worried, is just glad he’s keeping well back from all the acid.

Yasha had been slashing her way through their foes, but Nott turns around again, and she’s on the ground. Nott’s there in a moment, something strikes at her as she rushes past, but it glances off her shield and she doesn’t falter. She kneels down beside Yasha, fumbling for her pulse. She’s not dead yet, but she will be if she stays down much longer.

Nott pulls a flower from her pocket and pushes it into Yasha’s hair, it won’t stay there long in the fighting, but it’s the thought that counts.

“Up you get.” Nott says, and calls on the power of the Goddess who named her a champion, watching Yasha’s eyes flutter open again.

She pulls Yasha to her feet, and they ready their weapons again, standing back to back against the tide enemies rushing at them.

Some days, she’s certain she doesn’t deserve it, and the rest of the time she’s still pretty sure she doesn’t. It’s hard too, not to resent the Changebringer, for coming to her at such a low point, giving her strength but failing to solve any of the worst of Nott’s problems. Between it all, she spends a good chunk of time not wanting anything to do with her higher calling. Because it’s too good for her, or she’s too good for it. But her family has grown beyond what she could have ever imagined, and she’s far too smart not to take every advantage she can steal to keep them safe.

**Caducues**

Caduceus loves the Wildmother. He loves his family too. Though that’s a bit more complicated, in the way that family often is.

His Aunt tells him he’s different to the other children, marked for a different fate, a different kind of worship. The Clays are guardians of the Wildmother’s gift, guardians of the bodies and the life in their graveyard. Caduceus is to be guardian of the Clays. His Aunt is their guardian at present, and for a time the two of them will share the calling.

His parents tell him it is a great honour, and he knows that it is.

They tell him he should be pleased, and he thinks he is.

They tell him that he was always different from the others, marked for this, and Caduceus isn’t so certain.

He doesn’t think he’s anything like his siblings, but it’s their specific points that rub him the wrong way. They praise his devotion, his love for all that falls under Melora’s domain. They speak of his steady ferocity, the calm at the eye of the storm. They point to his reverence for their history, the rapt attention he pays to the stories he’s told. Perhaps, in some ways, these points on their own, are accurate enough. But, (though they think he is too young to remember) he recalls a time when they thought it was Clarabelle, who would follow in their Aunt’s footsteps, before it became clear it wasn’t her calling. And the things they tell him now, are just echoes of what they told her then.

Whatever the case, he is called forth, and he is not unhappy to answer the call. As they are taught the family business, and the worship of the Wildmother, Caduceus is given extra lessons by his Aunt. Harnessing his anger and his ancestors alike in the name of his family and his god.

The duty his aunt passed down to him is sacred to his family. She protected them, and with her stood all their ancestors before her. He is to follow that example, and one day she will stand with him.

***

Leaving Caduceus alone at the Blooming Grove is the cruellest thing his family ever did to him.

For Caduceus, being separated from his family is terrible. Despite how hard living with them was, living alone is worse. He loves the Blooming Grove and its purpose so very deeply, but as the guardian of the Clays, he should never have been left alone, especially as young as he was.

When he meditates, the Wildmother tells him that his grove is not the place he is needed, urges him to go to his destiny. He remains for too long, bound by inertia and the desperate hope that someone will return.

Eventually, he leaves. He walks away from his ancestral home with his tea set, his staff, a fractured and hurting party of adventures, and his ancestor’s shadows following in his wake.

***

Caduceus doesn’t scry on his family. Doesn’t ask the Wildmother how they fare.

He could. Perhaps he should. It is his sacred duty to watch over them all, keep them safe. How does that duty change when they leave him? If they’re hurt, or dead, has he failed?

Perhaps he shouldn’t. When he needs to know, he will know. He is on a path given to him by the Wildmother, for his home and his family, and he shouldn’t waver. All will be as it is. What use is knowing, if he has already lost?

It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t try.

***

Gradually, and then all at once, the strange group he has fallen in with changes (or maybe he does), and he realises that they are no longer projects for him to work on, or disasters waiting to happen, held together by bad habits and sheer stubbornness.

They’ve become something he’s been missing for a very long time.

***

He doesn’t even notice when it happens. Nott falls in battle. It’s hectic and desperate, they’re outnumbered and though they’re slowly turning the tide, it’s not looking good yet. Between his own foes, he barely has time to see someone approaching his unconscious friend. He bids his family protect her, too far to do any more as he works his way methodically through their enemies. He hears the man who stabbed Nott fall and Fjord rush to her side, but he’s too busy to watch.

After the battle, a silence composed of desperate breaths and grunts of pain settles over them, Caduceus trying to even out his breathing enough to calm.

Beau walks over and crouches next to him. “What the hell was that?” She asks.

“What was what?” He says in response.

That, it becomes apparent, was invoking the spirit of their dead friend, and calling him to fight by their side.

There’s a lump in his throat, the kind that makes him wish he’d vomit to be rid of it. He’s never heard of a guardian summoning someone that wasn’t of the family. He feels even further from his family than he did before.

Yasha sits next to him, rubbing soothing circles over his back. “You are like family to me.” She says. “I know you never met, but I think he’d feel the same.”

Jester is the first to agree, flinging her arms around him in a crushing hug. And soon they’ve all joined in.

Caduceus feels the weight of his ancestors always. He is never without them, whether they’re visible or not. He feels their love and pride, their gentle sorrow and soft joy enveloping him affectionately. It runs parallel to the love and belonging the Mighty Nein are giving him.

**Author's Note:**

> I began this forever ago and somewhat abandoned it in favour of other projects, but I got Xanthar's Guide to Everything for Christmas and that gave me the inspiration I needed to finish this (and it only took a month).  
> For those wondering, the Mighty Nein's classes are:  
> Beau- cleric, knowledge domain. Her holy symbol is probably her staff or her belt. I also think she'd make a great wizard, but given her relationship with authority figures and her not having magic in a magic heavy party, I thought cleric would be interesting.  
> Caduceus- barbarian, path of the ancestral guardian. Caduceus is already so fucking creepy, this might as well just happen. Also Caduceus raging fascinates me. Also also, the flavour text for ancestral guardians says they cover themselves in tattoos, which is interesting given what Caduceus has said about his family's stance on tattoos.  
> Caleb- rogue, mastermind archetype. At 3rd level he gains the ability to perfectly mimic accents, which is hilarious given his accent ability in cannon.  
> Fjord- bard, collage of whispers. After he figures out Uk'otoa was lying to him about being the source of his power he probably shifts subclasses. He might also dip into cleric (I know he's got wis 7 but let me have this) (he can be a terrible cleric who is adored by his god).  
> Jester- fighter, champion archetype. Because she's the Traveller's champion, get it? Also buff(er) Jester with a large axe is everything to me.  
> Molly- barbarian, path of the zealot. Poor Molly doesn't even know who or what he's supposed to be zealous about. The Moonweaver took one look at him and his absolute disaster of a somewhat stolen power set and said 'why the fuck not? I love this already.' He gets Yasha's class and subclass because they're platonic soulmates 4ever.  
> Nott- paladin, oath of vengeance. Her holy symbol is a sack full of her collections. A cranky goblin/halfling with a large hammer which she can use to cast divine smite is everything a look for in a dnd character.  
> Yasha- ranger, hunter archetype. Yasha could be a lot of things; Warlock, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Bloodhunter. But I like her as a ranger. Also I need to be able to project my tendency to see any tree, point to it and say 'that's a really cool tree' onto someone, and while there's a lot else going on, I think that soft reverence is a big part of who Yasha is.  
> Thanks to DrangonHawthorn for proofreading.  
> edit: I can't believe I forgot to mention this it's the most important part of the au. Caleb still has Frumpkin. Frumpkin just started following him around one day and it's never occurred to Caleb that he'd be anything but a regular cat. The others, especially Fjord, are all convinced he's a magic cat (maybe because they have proof, maybe because they're idiots) and don't realise Caleb thinks he's normal. This leads to a lot of confusing conversations. 'Is your cat a cat right now?' 'of course he's a cat. he's always a cat.' 'sorry. I just meant is he cat shaped at the moment?' 'what the fuck.'


End file.
